The Archbishop and Wonga

Have to say I was initially chuffed to see the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby laying down a challenge to Wonga and others of their ilk. The AoC communicated that he wanted to see the payday loan industry driven out of business by promoting the use of credit unions.

The payday loan industry is involved in outright usury which is condemned by many faiths such as Islam and Christianity and others. Usury we can look upon as the lending of money at exorbitant rates of interest.

But then I thought what was the AoC actually saying? He wanted to replace excessive usury with not so excessive usury. Is that what we should be aiming for? Plus the architects of our current austerity are backing the AoC!

I would love to see all of the credit industry driven out of business but it will only be done by paying workers a decent wage, sharing in the profit of their labour and making capitalism history.

At the end of the day this sort of initiative is just a sideshow, the real work to get a free and just society and world remains.